NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice

In the first comprehensive satellite study of its kind, a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team used NASA data to calculate how much Earth's melting land ice is adding to global sea level rise.

Using satellite measurements from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the researchers measured ice loss in all of Earth's land ice between 2003 and 2010, with particular emphasis on glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica.

The total global ice mass lost from Greenland, Antarctica and Earth's glaciers and ice caps during the study period was about 4.3 trillion tons (1,000 cubic miles), adding about 0.5 inches (12 millimeters) to global sea level. That's enough ice to cover the United States 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) deep.

Changes in ice thickness (in centimeters per year) during 2003-2010 as measured by NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, averaged over each of the world's ice caps and glacier systems outside of Greenland and Antarctica.

"Earth is losing a huge amount of ice to the ocean annually, and these new results will help us answer important questions in terms of both sea rise and how the planet's cold regions are responding to global change," said University of Colorado Boulder physics professor John Wahr, who helped lead the study. "The strength of GRACE is it sees all the mass in the system, even though its resolution is not high enough to allow us to determine separate contributions from each individual glacier."

About a quarter of the average annual ice loss came from glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica (roughly 148 billion tons, or 39 cubic miles). Ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica and their peripheral ice caps and glaciers averaged 385 billion tons (100 cubic miles) a year. Results of the study will be published online Feb. 8 in the journal Nature.

Traditional estimates of Earth's ice caps and glaciers have been made using ground measurements from relatively few glaciers to infer what all the world's unmonitored glaciers were doing. Only a few hundred of the roughly 200,000 glaciers worldwide have been monitored for longer than a decade.

One unexpected study result from GRACE was that the estimated ice loss from high Asian mountain ranges like the Himalaya, the Pamir and the Tien Shan was only about 4 billion tons of ice annually. Some previous ground-based estimates of ice loss in these high Asian mountains have ranged up to 50 billion tons annually.

"The GRACE results in this region really were a surprise," said Wahr, who is also a fellow at the University of Colorado-headquartered Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. "One possible explanation is that previous estimates were based on measurements taken primarily from some of the lower, more accessible glaciers in Asia and extrapolated to infer the behavior of higher glaciers. But unlike the lower glaciers, most of the high glaciers are located in very cold environments and require greater amounts of atmospheric warming before local temperatures rise enough to cause significant melting. This makes it difficult to use low-elevation, ground-based measurements to estimate results from the entire system."

"This study finds that the world's small glaciers and ice caps in places like Alaska, South America and the Himalayas contribute about 0.02 inches per year to sea level rise," said Tom Wagner, cryosphere program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "While this is lower than previous estimates, it confirms that ice is being lost from around the globe, with just a few areas in precarious balance. The results sharpen our view of land-ice melting, which poses the biggest, most threatening factor in future sea level rise."

The twin GRACE satellites track changes in Earth's gravity field by noting minute changes in gravitational pull caused by regional variations in Earth's mass, which for periods of months to years is typically because of movements of water on Earth's surface. It does this by measuring changes in the distance between its two identical spacecraft to one-hundredth the width of a human hair.

The GRACE spacecraft, developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and launched in 2002, are in the same orbit approximately 137 miles (220 kilometers) apart. The California Institute of Technology manages JPL for NASA.

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As you can see sea level rises and falls over the years but the alarmists choose to only show the years where it rises or sometimes, like in thie piece, they outright lie. The Envisat data is undisputed and is not an 'interpretation' of data as are the conclusions of the alarmist in this piece (John Wahr)

The alarmists have an emotional need to beat people around the head with phoney data and perverse conclusions to make themselves feel better about feeling unsafe in the world. Maybe they think if we are all as scared shitless as they are then we will form a big support group where we can drink latte's in our hessian sandles.

The Himalayas hold the planet’s largest body of ice outside the polar caps

The UN panel on climate change warning that Himalayan glaciers could melt to a fifth of current levels by 2035 is wildly inaccurate, an academic says.

J Graham Cogley, a professor at Ontario Trent University, says he believes the UN authors got the date from an earlier report wrong by more than 300 years.

He is astonished they “misread 2350 as 2035”.

(If I put that in a novel, no one would find it at all plausible.)

Some may also even recall that when the ridiculous IPCC claim was first questioned, IPCC chairman Rajenda Pachauri famously labeled claims of the mistake “voodo science”. He later had to retract that slur, amid some (but not much) ebarrassment

"Never acknowledge, Never Apologise" seems to be the motto of the IPCC

Now it appears there hasn’t been any melt at all in the last 10 years.

A fairly decent expose on the IPCC and it's apparent, (according to the book anyway) disregard for anything even remotely approaching a sense of ethics, is Donna LaFramboise's book "The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World's Top Climate Expert" - http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/my-book/

before deciding to take anything "real scientist" says about climate seriously.

For example, he often posts carefully crafted lies created by people funded by the infamous koch brothers (such as "JoNova" etc ) then knowingly tries to pawn them off as climate fact while using the orwellian monicker of "real scientist"

Real Climate is a decent site which will help "clarify" the so called "science" posted by "real scientist". If you aren't sure then look up what they have to say about the points he makes before accepting any of them. A lot of it is old hat they are well used to hearing from deniers

cool jow said: "The alarmists have an emotional need to beat people around the head with phoney data and perverse conclusions "

Funny! from where I stand, it looks like all the phony data distortions and perverse conclusions are mostly coming from koch brother / exxon funded cliimate denier websites and subsequently propagated widely by people like you, mr cool!

..of anyone who has tried to follow his PR-op-agenda paying any attention to RS and his noise of the wurld...real scientists are objective and measured in their language, hedge their tentative conclusions in qualifications, and make it clear we are dealing with approximations to a system in flux, not a nailed down two-dimensional laboratory model...

Hype and science are polar opposites...and RS's hype would melt a polar berg.

or you could try http://climateaudit.org/ run by Steve Macintyre. steve is the guy that provided, now generally accepted, mathematical & statistical proofs that darling of the 1St Church of the Holy Climate Scientology, Cardinal Michael Mann, was apparently attempting to decieve people with his "This is a true relic of the Holy Hockey-Stick of Anticoch" nonsense

And what a wondeful source Sourcewatch is - so reliable and un-biassed. I already told Serf that using wiki and wiki-like sites is a good way to make a fool of yourself, but the poor mite never seems to get it.

"I would describe myself as an armchair activist concerned with media manipulation of "green" issues .. . . .Earlier this year I woke up to the fact that I had been lied to on the subject of Climate Change. It was a very clever lie; so clever , everyone I knew was lying also. So I decided to try to find out the truth, my edits on SourceWatch are the pebbles I have turned over along that road."

Indeed. . . . . . "concerned with media manipulation"? like his own Manipulation of the Sourcewatch page? What is Sourcewatch other than a smear site for obsessives? Your own link shows how easy it is for one person to act out their obsessive compulsions as some form of 'revenge' at Sourcewatch, or any wiki-like site.

"Next time you see the usual "global warming" chart, look carefully: it is in tiny fractions of one degree. The ENTIRE global warming is less than six tenths of one degree. Here is the Global Warming [unnecessary abusive term removed by moderator] own chart, originally obtained from a US-Gov't website promoting this fairy-tale, , rendered in actual degrees,[unnecessary abuse removed by moderator] .

I was going to use 0-100 like a thermometer, but you end up with almost a flat line, so I HELPED the Climate Change side by making the temperature range much narrower, and the chart needlessly tall to stretch the up-down differences in the line."

"One of them even seems to think that repeatedly linking to smear-sites is in some way a fine substitute for actually having an intelligent argument "

Thats rich coming from someone who repeatedly links to dubious climate denier sites where they judiciously pick which bits of data to graph and which to leave out of their graphs, thus skewing the result to make it seem like they are telling the truth.

for example you previously posted graphs by jonova here on indymedia. (we know this because you stupidly forgot to edit out the label on one of them!! :D people should visit the thread I linked to above to see this for themselves.)

it is a well known fact that jonova has been linked to the billionaire koch brothers, big oil barons who have a vested interest in suppressing the real facts about climate science. google it.

any sign of an apology from you for deliberately doing that to mislead indy readers ?

And yet for some reasoin you are unable to show any lies - tsk tsk - one might think that you are as usual engaged in your normall pathetic smear attempts, personally attacking because you have nothing of substance to offer

"
for example you previously posted graphs by jonova here on indymedia. (we know this because you stupidly forgot to edit out the label on one of them!! :D people should visit the thread I linked to above to see this for themselves.)

it is a well known fact that jonova has been linked to the billionaire koch brothers, big oil barons who have a vested interest in suppressing the real facts about climate science. google it."

Ahh so that is what you are ranting about, is it?

Welll so far I have yet to see you show me anything innaccurate in the graph.

Nothing at all.

All you have done is scream 'liar' but provided no proof of a lie, because as usual, you completely ignored the content of the graph - just like you always do, Serf.

You really hate the content of such stuff, dontcha Serfie, cos you always avoid dealing with it anyway

My title is not "serfie". It's "serf". Thats just cheap psychology. An attempt at infantilising. Its interesting to see such underhand PR tactics coming from someone claiming to be a scientist and just wanting to let the facts speak for themselves.
IPCC 2007 is not a specific document.

There are loads of IPCC documents in 2007. I can't read them all to try to find one diagram. Life is finite y'know.

Please give a specific link or people might be forgiven for thinking that you are hiding the context of your selectively chosen diagram under the huge pile of climate data by deliberate vagueness in your link, while at the same time trying to make it look credible by quoting authoritative sources (out of context of course, but with no proper link to the context)..

I do look forward to reading the actual context around "p675" of this "document" you haven't yet properly linked to. (most scientific!!). when I am actually given enough information to do so of course!

Meanwhile while we're all waiting for that, here's some concrete information and links regarding your dubious "sources" for readers :
"Real Scientist" is pasting diagrams created by JoNova a known climate skeptic conspiracist whose research was not on climate but on muscular dystrophy and who is funded by the heartland institute and the famous billionaire koch brothers.

Here's some common knowledge about JoNova:

As a blogger Nova concentrates on disputing the existence of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and also covers related topics such as Peter Spencer's hunger strike against New South Wales laws on combating climate change.[11] Nova had a five-part debate on AGW with Dr Andrew Glikson, first on Quadrant Online,[12] and continuing on her own blog.[13]

Despite the support she has received from the Heartland Institute, she has downplayed the funding available to sceptics. Writing on "The Drum", ABC's current affairs website, she said "Sceptics are fighting a billion dollar industry aligned with a trillion dollar trading scheme. Big Oil's supposed evil influence has been vastly outdone by Big Government, and even those taxpayer billions are trumped by Big-Banking". She pointed out that as well as funding sceptic organisations such as the Heartland Institute, Exxon Mobil had given to carbon-friendly initiatives such as $100 million to Stanford University's Global Climate and Energy Project, and $600 million for researching biofuels.[14]Joanne Nova and her partner David Evan's web site sciencespeak.com[1] includes presentations and other documents which postulate the existence of conspiracy and corruption in climate science[15]. The presentations and documents at the web site present evidence which has been disproved, but continues to be used by Joanne Nova both in the presentations available and also at her public speaking events[16]. For example, the poor siting of some temperature measurement stations in the USA is presented as proof that "The Western Climate Establishment is Cheating"[15], despite a reanalysis of the data by Dr Richard Muller, with preliminary results presented to the US Congress that "the warming seen in the “poor” stations is virtually indistinguishable from that seen in the “good” stations"[17]. The analysis was partly funded by "the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation"[18]. A study which contradicts the claims in Evans and Nova's document, with funding from "Oil billionaires Charles and David Koch [who] are the nation's most prominent funders of efforts to prevent curbs on fossil-fuel burning", and performed by "a longtime critic of the global warming consensus"[18] makes it unlikely that the conspiracy proposed by Evans and Nova exists[18].
Another claim in the document "Is the Western Climate Establishment Corrupt"[15] is that "The western climate establishment run the Argo [ocean monitoring] network, but they have made it extraordinarily difficult to obtain the ocean temperature from the Argo data"[15]. In contrast to the claim, the Argo data (and free data viewing software) is mostly online and is easily accessible at the NOAA web site for Argo[19], and at the Argo project web site[20].

So....sources include Conspiracists funded by the heartland institute. How VERY scientific and objective. LMFAO ROFL ;-) !!!

Below is pictorial evidence that the oil company shill claiming to be a "real scientist" is using diagrams specially crafted by a well known climate conspiracist
[ Jo Nova: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanne_Nova ]

ok, I get it - you cannnot point out ANY innacuracy in either graph . . . . . so you've decided to scream "Jo Nova" and rant about Heartland instead?

Ok

good for you

So . . . . when asked to point out an inacuracy in the content of the graph, you instead decided to produce the exact same graph [?] BUT with the fiendishly clever addition of having rather clumsily quarter(half/one-third?)-circled, in yellow no less [!!], the word "JoNova" in the bottom right-hand corner?

That's it?

That's all you could come up with?!

So, Serf, it's clear you're unable to point out any inacuracy in the content of the graph.

Just so we're clear here: no actual inaccuracies, so far, in the content of the graph then?

"The sources for this graph were : Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007, p. 675, based on Santer et al, 2003.

The black line is actual temperature, way lower than 'predicted' (i.e: completely made-up).

See also IPCC, 2007, Appendix 9C.

ACTUAL temperature data from 1998 to Nov. 2010 added later"

I searched the web, just for you, darling,

. . . . and you'll NEVER guess what I came up with . . .

go on . . .guess?

ahh go on . . guesss . . . . .ye will, ye will, yewill! . .. . . . .

(ohh the excitement is killing me!! . . . what will it be?? . . . )

It's THE IPCC !!!!!!!! (Does No One expect the IPCC?)

the IPCC is the clearly stated source for the 2nd of the 2 graphs I recently posted.

It took me about a minute to find it, Serf.

Here's how I fiendishly cleverly did it - I took the info provided, entered it into a search engine (usually on the top right hand corner of your 'browser', Serf') and voila!! Hocus pocus, as if by majick, ipso-facto, I was easily able to find the source on which the graph is based.

Only a very dishonest person, would continue now to try and claim that the IPCC-sourced-graph has been in some way 'misrepresented'.

Figure SPM.5. Solid lines are multi-model global averages of surface warming (relative to 1980–1999) for the scenarios A2, A1B and B1, shown as continuations of the 20th century simulations.

Shading denotes the ±1 standard deviation range of individual model annual averages. The orange line is for the experiment where concentrations were held constant at year 2000 values.

The grey bars at right indicate the best estimate (solid line within each bar) and the likely range assessed for the six SRES marker scenarios.

The assessment of the best estimate and likely ranges in the grey bars includes the AOGCMs in the left part of the figure, as well as results from a hierarchy of independent models and observational constraints. {Figures 10.4 and 10.29}

Direct from the IPCC :- sourced evidence of how uttterly useless the Priests of Climate Scientology are when it comes to 'predictions'

..if it wasn't for the childish presentation..it reminds me of a very sincere kid I met at the Young Scientist gig back in the '90s.

He prepared a paper based on his observeations of the deleterious effects of mouthwash on tooth enamel and presented graphs and figures and masses of evidence to back his contention..

It was very hard to get through to him that his data was based on a preconceived idea, and that he had soaked several teeth in undiluted mouthwash for months. He was most reluctant to accept that most people rinse with well-diluted mouthwash, and re-rinse, maybe twice week...they dont spend weeks walking round gargling the stuff.

Now all scientists can skew evidence(often unwittingly) for or against any case.

Your enthusiams for your conclusions undermines your claim to be anything resembling a real scientist. Quite apart from the general caveat about ALL emptors.

I suggest, if you value your conclusions, you temper your glee. It might even help your dubious case.

..tell me that anyone who confuses a graph with some capitalised REALITY is probably out of the same camp as those who fail to realise that statistics are like a skimpy bikini...what the reveal is highly exciting...but what remains hidden is vital.

"Now all scientists can skew evidence(often unwittingly) for or against any case. "

Using the very evidence, the 'projections'/'predictions' put forward by the IPCC, to make it's case concerning the hypothesised 'danger' of CO2, and combining it with the actual recorded temperature I have simply shown that the Climate Modelers are uselesss at predicting anything at all.

Your complete refusal to accept it is your own problem, not anyone elses

er... can you provide an actual link to the origin of your second graph with the "extra data added" to it for 2000 onwards on the IPCC site ? No, you can't can you? hence the oblique but authoritative sounding references to "p675" and "appendix 9c" rather than a simple link. you're covering up the fact that this is not really an official graph but was created by climate deniers with a paint package and an agenda!

Your argument rests completely on the validity of the extra bit added to the second diagram, accordingly it better be consistent with, as carefully processed mathematically, and scientifically validated and using the same methodology and scientific approach as the rest of the data in the graph to be acceptable, otherwise it's a bit suspect. Needless to say, ITS NOT! where is the discussion of scaling, methodology, software used, treatment of data etc. Nowhere thats where!

The previous diagram (which IS on the IPCC site) without the extra data is fine but proves little and is still within the tolerances and consistent with what IPCC are saying, i.e. within the range of some of their modelling.

However you are more than a little oblique regarding the actual source of the second diagram. something about a "p675" and "appendix 9c" which I could not locate. Rather odd that this is the internet yet you didn't provide a direct link to the diagram itself on the IPCC site.

Well, thats probably because that diagram IS NOT ON the IPCC site. Yes folks, the black wavy line has been added to the original IPCC diagram in a fucking paint package by a climate denier with a blog, not by the "real scientists" at the IPCC

You were not really very clear about that mr "fake scientist" were you??

I had a look for the mysterious "p675" reference on google. I found a swarm of climate denier sites posting the exact same diagram as you, each with their own wavy black line" added by the author" and the exact same mysterious "p675" and authoritative sounding "appendix 9c" references

So essentially it is indeed based on the IPCC diagram linked to before. But the striking bit, the crux of the argument, the vital thick black wavy line below the coloured bit has been grafted on to the original in a paint package by your friendly local climate denier then posted on all the other climate denier repeater blogs worldwide. Not a credible source sorry.

Anybody can monkey around with a jpeg and a paint package.

When the IPCC scientists graph the "extra data" and post the resulting graph on their official site for scientific peer review and you link directly to that then I'll accept it. Not when some vested interest blogger with a paint package and an agenda embellishes the previous IPCC diagram in his bedroom.

While we are waiting for the IPCC to publish a proper graph that we can trust complete with context and methodology etc, here's some more info on the "incentives" available for climate denial, oilspill disaster whitewashing, and generally trying to undermine the work of scientists at the IPCC and the work of environmentalists in general.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-demelle/denial-a-....html

I would not wish to get in the middle of this bitchy but entertaing and possibly enlightening spat. But I would like to see some actual data with clickable links on the following. From RS - where exactly does the "black wavy line" data come from? From serf - can you come up with a dataset that contradicts the "black wavy line" or maybe show that it is but one of a set of possible temperature measurements and is not really representative of the totality of data. Cos here's what I suspect. The climate data outcomes do not match the models predictions over the years. And the most outlying example of this is the one being discussed here. This is based on observations of the positions taken up in the debate rather than any scientific analysis whatsoever!

My complete refusal, RS, has been to accept your presentation...and your idiotic and tautological claim to be the one and only 'Real Scientist' and arbiter of some capitalised 'Reality'.

Your vulgar and insulting delivery is not what I associate with the measured and qualified approach of science.

Science tends to present evidence impartially and leave the absolutist hyperbole to theologians.

I've tried to constructively bring it to you that if your argument has any intrinsic value, it might be more likely to be considered by the scientifically minded if you dropped your partisan and hyper-polemical pontifications.

The oceans hold the vast bulk of the heat in the climate system. We’ve only been measuring ocean temperature properly since mid-2003, when the Argo system of measurement-bouys became operational In Argo, a buoy duck dives down to a depth of 2,000 meters, measures temperatures as it very slowly ascends, then radios the results back to headquarters via satellite. Over three thousand Argo buoys constantly patrol all the oceans of the world.

The ocean temperature has been basically flat since we started measuring it properly.

It has warmed nowhere NEAR as rapidly as the climate models predicted

The climate models project ocean heat content increasing at about 0.7 × 10^22 Joules per year. See Hansen et al, 2005: Earth’s energy imbalance: Confirmation and implications. Science, 308, 1431-1435, page 1432 (http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_Hansen_etal_1.pdf), where the increase in ocean heat content per square meter of surface, in the upper 750m, according to typical models, is 6.0 Watt·year/m2 per year, which converts to 0.7 × 10^22 Joules per year for the entire ocean

“The DeSmogBlog team is led by Jim Hoggan, founder of James Hoggan
& Associates, one of Canada’s leading public relations firms.”

So it's hilariously IRONIC that you should use the words of a man openly working for a PR firm, a man that REALLY IS being paid to tell you exactly what he is telling you, because THAT is his JOB, in a cheap attempt to smear people that disagree with you.

A lot of insults and bluster but no proper answer as to the exact original source of the wavy black line for you contrarian.

I'll happily discuss any deviation when the REAL scientists at the IPCC create a proper new graph with the latest temperature data since 2000 on it treated and scaled in exactly the same scientific manner as the rest of the data in the graph. And someone supplies a link to this diagram on the IPCC site.

But I won't accept a wavy black line added to a diagram by dodgy internet climate deniers with a paint package as even remotely constituting scientific evidence.

Your behaviour and sources up to now have been dubious whenever examined more closely. Time and again you have shown that what you say cannot be trusted. You attempt to drown people in dodgy but authoritative sounding posts whenever you are caught out.

The fact is you have shown yourself to be both dishonest and abusive. Any trust you may have had when you first posted on this site has completely gone at this stage. It is on that basis that I am rejecting what you may have to say on the subject.

"I'm guessing you'll choose the former ie:
"continue claiming it is a lie, without any providing proof whatsoever"

Don't put words in my mouth. I haven't claimed the data is a lie. I have claimed YOU are not a credible source of information. Thats quite a different thing.

Regarding the data, I have reserved judgement on that until I get it from a more credible source. Thats not you or jonova or any of the other climate deniers with a blog and a paint package and a financial agenda trying to pull the wool over the public's eye for big oil

I'll have some faith the data when it is collated and graphed using proper scientific procedures by honest brokers and posted on the IPCC site by real scientists for proper peer review.

I won't accept dodgy sourced diagrams out of context from a non credible source like yourself.

@ RS: You could put this to bed for once and for all by giving a clickable link to the dataset for the "black wavy line" complete with confirmations that it's a genuine apples vs apples comparison. Likewise the NASA / University of Alabama data and the actual vs predicted ocean temperature data that are shown on the one chart. Also would be interested in your views on whether the two indices of temperature change you've used are representative of the totality of climate data.

@opus: You've accused RS of being a LIAR
and @serf: You've accused RS of being dishonest.

Either or both of you could put this to bed by pointing out (again with clickable links for the lazy or those disinclined to repeat research that has obviously already been done) exactly what he has said that's demonstrably false. Pointing out that he uses sources you might consider biased and unreliable does NOT prove that any of his contentions in this thread are necessarily false.
Equally, your views and evidence on whether or not the two indices of temperature change RS has used are representative of the totality of climate data would be welcome.

None of the three of you IMHO are enhancing your respective credibilities by the overall tone of your contributions. More light and less heat, please. My unscientific suspicions remain intact so far!

RS is afraid to engage there because they'd tear him a new asshole intellectually and factually so instead he peddles his sarah palin science here on indymedia, a climate discussion backwater where he knows he will get away with a lot more and maybe convince some gullible people

My advice is to wait for the next set of graphs and conclusions from IPCC rather than accepting conclusions, out of context diagrams, and dodgily edited jpegs from a non credible source like RS who has shown himself to be deceitful in his presentation of the facts